The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-10-22
Compiled for The Ark0ns0lO Tr0veLer. SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.

Russia has now 255 meteorological stations, not including the large ob- servatories.
 Several European specialists have made the curious observation that acute rheumatism is more prevalent in dry than ill rainy weather.
 MT. T. P. White asserts that the salts formed by fruit acids and tin are harmless, and that poisoning by canned fruits must be due to solder or other impurities-arsenic, copper or lead.
 Fire proofing stage and scenery with chemical paints is the unani- nous recommendation of the French commission appointed to report on the best means Of preventing fires in theatres.
 A weeping rose tree in garden at Roosteren, Holland, is so large that thirty performers lately gave a ccn- cert under its branches. It is sixty five feet in circumference, and was estimated to have 10000 roses at the time of the performance.
 A third crystalline form of carbon has been discovered in meteoric iron from Western Australia. The min eral, which is to be called Cliftonite, resembles the diamond in the shape of it's crystals, but in color and other respects it is more like graphite.
 oh | aka Af al has produced new and beautiful water-lily. The flowers are six inches in diameter, and their color is the soft canary of the Mareehal Mel rose. Only two other water-lilie are known-a pretty North American species, and a dull-colored species of Brazil.
 The Bank of France has found valuable detective agent in photogra- phy. An enlarged photograph of an apparently genuine check showed plainly that the amount and the name of the payee had been cleverly altered. Suspected coins are photographed with genuine ones, when the counter feits are revealed by comparison.
 A HYGRoMETRIC LANDsCAPE.-A patented weather prognosticator sold ill Prague is landscape covered with the salts of cobalt. These colors are very sensitive to moisture, and are made still more so by mixture with gelatine. With increasing moisture in the atmosphere, the blue heavens of the picture assume dirty red hue, and the green grass and foliage, the yellow background, etc., are also strikingly changed in color.
 ACUTE PERCEPTIoN.-An English writer observes that the sense of hear ing in some birds seems as wonderful and discriminating as that of smell in dogs. A thrush has been seen to listen for worms, and very evidently to hear them, too, though within two yards of noisy lawn-mower; while robins appear to be able to distinguish the voices of their own offspring and par ents from number of others, and at great distance. It is suggested that such cases indicate the "exclusive direction of the attention of a sense" rather than mere keenness.
 DESTRUCTION BY SALT MINING.- The extensive subsidcnces at North wich, England, according to Mir. thomas Ward, have no other cause than the pumping of brine for the manufacture of white salt. The upper bed of salt lies beneath about fifty yards of mari; the lower bed, separated from the first by ten yards of marl, is over thirty yards thick. The sinking was first noticed about 1770, a century after the first discovery of salt, and has progressed rapididly since. Much property has been destroyed, and large lakes have been formed-one having an area of 100 acres and all depths up to forty five feet.
 NON- MAGNETIzABLE STEEL.-Thc remarkable properties of the new steel that is being made by Sheffield firm formed the subject of paper by Prof. w. F. Barrett at the late meet ing of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. This steel contains thirteen per cent of mangan- csc, and, while less elastic than iron, its tenacity in the form of wire is nearly double that of ordinary steel. The manganese steel wire does not exhibit the anomalous expansion in cooling of ordinary iron and steel wires; and in- stead of being hardened by sudden cooling, as is ordinarily the case, the new material is softened by the pro- cess. The most important property of manganese steel, however, is its resistence of magnetization, which, as had already been pointed out, especi- ally adapts it for use in ship building, in the plates of dynamos, in non- watches, etc. About 5000 times as much magnetism has been given to common steel as the